New firm believes it’s got the power
Wind Mills are too noisy, too big and clunky, and they kill bats and birds. Naysayers abound when it comes to harnessing the wind and converting Mother Nature’s fury into energy via a wind turbine or, as it is better known, a windmill. Karl Douglass, an engineer with a degree from Drexel University, went about trying to do something about it, and he believes he has.
Urban markets first require wind turbine technology that is compatible with limited spaces on rooftops and small real estate footprints. More importantly, to become viable in urban retail markets, wind energy must be available on demand, not merely when the wind blows, in order to provide the maximum economic benefit to the end user.
Sometime this summer, Omniwind Energy Systems, a tiny company with no more than a handful of employees that Karl Douglass helped found just over a year ago in Dublin, will begin production on a wind turbine that is quiet, relatively compact, environmentally friendly, and, perhaps even more importantly, can produce enough energy to supply about 50 percent of an average household’s electrical needs over the course of a year.
Omniwind’s latest technology may meet the BOCA Codes (Building Officials and Code Administrators) many municipalities have in effect that list 35 feet as the highest any structure can be on a property.
The company’s idea is to mount a wind turbine on a 30-foot pole and place it right next to a house. The turbine, which looks similar to a small satellite orbiting the Earth, would consist of airfoils that rise about six-feet, which would push the envelope of a BOCA Code’s height restriction. “They used to fasten those old TV antennas that way,” said Damon Oaten, Omniwind’s director of marketing and sales.
What is different about Omniwind’s prototype is Its airfoil design and the capability of producing energy at wind speeds as low as three to five miles per hour. The design was formulated by Doylestown inventor Francis McCabe, who has several dozen patents to his name.
The keys to Omniwind’s patented airfoil — without getting too carried away with engineer-speak — is that it spins vertically, can catch wind from any direction, its relationship with the other airfoils, and the geometry of the airfoils. “Our goal is to produce one kilowatt at 20 miles per hour of wind speed,” said Douglass, who is also the company’s president and CEO. “There is nobody in our world in a vertical windmill that can do that and do it honestly.”
Currently, though, Omniwind can produce .5 or .6 kilowatts in 20 mile an hour wind speed, but hope to have that up to a kilowatt when their prototype hits the production line.
Omniwind’s idea is not to store the energy once it’s produced, so there will be no need to load the basement with battery cells, nor will it push the energy produced through the main grid. Still, some municipalities are in a wait-and-see mode when it comes to alternate energy. Typically, Township building inspectors are skeptical about any new device or building technology not neatly fitting to existing code. “We’re seeing new products come out, in all sizes and shapes, all the time,” said David Kuhns, zoning officer for Upper Makefield Township. “Until we have a good handle on exactly what the lead technology will be, we probably won’t do anything but look at each property separately.”
A prototype of Omniwind’s wind turbine should be completed soon and will be placed outside, behind their building in Dublin. It will then take another 12 to 16 weeks to manufacture and be ready for the market, “by the windy fall season,” Douglass said.
Douglass said Omniwind is in negotiations with various businesses that have the capability to install their pole-mounted wind turbines. It would cost an average consumer about $8,700 to purchase one. Most of that price would come in the form of the installation. The product itself would sell for not quite $4,000.
Of course, anything to with alternate forms of power such as windmills is not without skeptics.
“We think wind energy is wonderful, but on a 90 degree day in summer those windmills are not moving much,” said Peco spokesman Michael Wood. “With each type of alternative energy, they all have a place in our overall energy supply, and wind energy is so much better than it was 10, 15 years ago.
“You wouldn’t even have seen windmills in Pennsylvania not long ago, but still it’s a small amount in the overall scheme. … Solar, wind, biomass are nice, but they’re a niche, they only fulfill a small percentage of our needs.”
